Inside Houston’s “chamber of horrors”

A reader on Facebook recently posted some photos of his grandmother, Fanny Hamlin Black, who at one time was a writer at the Houston Chronicle in the 1920s.

In an article published on May 20, 1924, Black described in graphic detail the inhumane methods used to put down dogs at the pound.

“Friday morning at the dog pound is a nerve-racking, disgusting spectacle to those who might have called for dogs.

Think of it — 50 or 60 dogs in a miserable little wooden box, four feet by six feet by eight, smothered to death by sulphur fumes.

[…]

In their intense pain the dogs literally tear themselves and each other to pieces — and beat their little bodies against the sides of the box with blows that can be heard for quite a distance.”

Black noted that many poor Houstonians had lost pets to the pound because they could not afford the $2 dog tax (about $25 in today’s money).

Of course, you can’t write about the mistreatment of animals and not expect some kind of reaction. Writing in his column the next day, Chronicle founder Marcellus Foster asked city leaders to look into correcting the problems at the pound.

The next day, after the paper had received more calls from readers, Foster suggested residents organize a humane society to make sure that dogs and other animals are properly protected.

Finally, on May 23, Houston Mayor Oscar Holcombe and other city leaders decided that more humane methods would be used to put down canines. Illuminating gas was suggested as one way to replace sulfur dioxide. Until the city could upgrade its pound to handle that method, no dogs would be put to sleep.

“I have a dog myself that I’m extremely proud of, and I feel pretty deeply on the subject of any dog, rich man’s or poor, who has to go through the agony described in Miss Black’s article in The Chronicle. You can say for me that I will see that a remedy is forthcoming as quickly as possible,” Holcombe said.